He walked so damn fast that it was lucky I was a shifter and able to keep up with his short, powerful legs. He led me right to the farthest point of the room, to the veil that hid the white hallway from view.
“This is the directory!” Gaster chirped.
I stared around blankly, trying to figure out what he was talking about. “Directory?”
He gestured to the shimmery veil. “When it’s not acting as an early warning system to protect the library, it can be used to navigate the Solaris System.”
Oh, yes. Now that was excellent news.
Gaster placed his hand on a small panel that was offset to the veil, and since it was as white as the walls, I’d missed it completely until he touched it. “Place your hand here,” he explained, “and say divulge.”
The moment the word left his lips, the shimmery veil solidified, turning into an eight-feet-tall map. A very detailed map…
Gaster slid the screen across, zooming in on one section.
A very detailed and interactive map. Fuck yes!
“This is where we’re standing, and from here, you can find everything els—” He was cut off by someone shouting his name, a tiny figure hurrying into sight.
“A book is missing,” she said. It was clearly another goblin, looking decidedly more feminine than Gaster, with her shoulder-length golden hair and thick dark lashes.
“This is Lady Hel,” he told me. “She is a royal of the demi-fey and helps me out here as part of her right of passage to her final role.”
I nodded like I knew what the fuck he was talking about. Lady Hel didn’t even look my way, already hurrying back to the tragedy of a missing book.
“If you could excuse me while I deal with this disaster,” Gaster said with a head nod. “Feel free to navigate the directory and I’ll return shortly.”
I shot him a broad grin. That sort of blind trust was going to get him into trouble, but for now, I wouldn’t do anything too crazy. Especially not with Inky slinking around nearby, not letting me out of its “sight.”
“I’ll be right here,” I promised.
He was gone in his faster than a bullet way, and I spun to the directory, ready to learn everything I could in whatever time I had. First, I focused on the map as a whole, zooming out to see the room in its entirety. The image was about ten times larger than me, so I took a few steps back.
It was an eagle eye view of the Library of Knowledge, giving me a clear layout. I counted the doors running along either wall: five on each. They were offset and divided by long rows and shelves, and when I zoomed into each shelf, I saw that many of them held books that corresponded to the lands that had nearby doors. One near Faerie had a small glowing dot, so I pressed my finger to it.
With a ding, a message popped up. History of Faerie: Great Beast dynasty to the air folk.
Holy fucking shit. I was going to be able to navigate this bitch so well with this directory. I wished I could import the map to a phone and carry it around with me everywhere.
The ten doorways were my first priority, so I pressed the glowing dot on the one closest to me. The real door was over my shoulder; from here, I could see it had a tiny swirl of darkness in the center. “Cousin of yours?” I asked Inky, chuckling at my own stupid joke.
On the directory, the square of information popped up… Tundera. The Land of the Lost. Dark souls dwell within this world of no light, and from here, they will either find redemption or their true destruction.
Okay, cryptic and creepy. Super fucking cool.
The next door along, one I could also see in real life, was a normal, non-descript white door. The information popped up: Valdor. Birthplace of the vampire. Creatures of lust and darkness. Drinkers of life force.
Oh, yeah. Vampire town.
Wait… vampires? There were legit vampires? Were they in the human world, too?
I practically dove on the information button for the next door, desperate to know about this entire supernatural galaxy. The next door was too far down the library for me to see, so I just waited for the information to appear.
Karn: world is predominantly water. Inhabitants mostly able to exist above and below.
This one I already knew, and the information was way too brief for my liking, but thankfully, the shelves nearby had plenty more information. I just had to start reading. I pressed one of the dots on the closest shelf to the Karn door. It dinged straight away. Karn: history, rules, regulations, water sources.
I was all over that as soon as I was done here.
The last two doors on this side of the room was Faerie: land filled with original magic. Inhabitants from a range of castes, including seelie and unseelie, demi-fey, and the lurkers. And the last door popped up as Frozen Tundra: no known inhabitants. Too extreme to be explored.
Well, that was interesting. I quickly moved on to the other side, and in order they were:
Brolder: Birthplace of shifters. Hybrids. And Beasts of the deep.
Honor Meadows: the original source of light. Powerful beyond knowledge.
Shadow Realm: information unknown. Critical error.
Watchers: those with omniscient power. Governs many. Answers to few.
Desert lands: born of heat and fire, magics and wishes.
I blinked. “What the actual fuck?” I muttered out loud. I had so many questions. Just, like, so many.
“My apologies!” Gaster said, his words busting through my confused brain. “Apparently, a book was misshelved, and usually, the library itself handles that situation, but in this case, it was able to be slotted into two categories, and that was where the confusion arose…”
He continued to ramble, and I stared blankly at him, my mind still mulling over these various and vast worlds that connected to this Solaris System. The information about them might have been brief, but it was enough to capture my interest. Especially Brolder, the apparent birthplace of shifters. Had Shadow been there when he created us, making his own human hybrid version? Or was there another explanation?
Speaking of no explanation… What the fuck was up with the Shadow Realm? Critical error?
“Miss Mera?”
Gaster peered up at me, his gnarled face even more creased with what appeared to be concern.
“There are ten worlds that lead from this library,” I choked out.
He tilted his head, his eyes almost blending into the brown of his skin as they lightened slightly. “Eleven actually.” He jerked his head to the directory. “Beyond this one is the pathway to the humans.”
Right. Right. I knew that. I’d walked that long hall… or been carried for most of it, anyway.
My eyes shot to Inky, who was creeping closer for the first time since I’d touched it. Like it knew I was thinking about the Shadow Beast. Back up, bitch, I mentally warned, and whether it was my expression or what, it stopped moving closer. Good Inky.
“What is up with the Shadow Realm?” I asked, turning back to Gaster.
His face dropped before he shook his head. “That’s not my story to tell. Now, please, follow me.”
He spun and hurried back into the library, and I stared after him. Guess that was his hard line, and he was not crossing it. Following as directed, the awkward silence lasted about fifteen seconds before he was back to his happy self. “The master wants me to start you in cleaning, and you will work your way up from there.”
Gritting my teeth, I didn’t argue. No doubt this was Shadow’s plan all along, and I was determined he never knew he’d struck any points against me. Sure, I hated cleaning more than almost anything in the world, but I was going to go out there and do a perfectly adequate job at almost cleaning. Nothing like moderate effort to prove a point.
Gaster led me to the cleaning supplies, all of which were brand new because “the library usually cleans itself,” but nevertheless, I spent the next however many hours leaning on a broom and dusting dust-free shelves.
All the while with a smile on my face because fuck you, Shadow Beast. He wanted me to fear him, and he had no idea how close he was to that achievement, but he also must have wanted me to hate him. In that, he could count himself successful.
It was impossible to tell time in this library, with its constant rotating guests from the worlds. To pass the day, I spent a good number of hours trying to guess which world each inhabitant came from. Some were super obvious—like Karn—while for others, I had zero idea.
The only consistent in this place were the dozen or so goblins who all seemed to follow Gaster around. I enjoyed watching them as well, the goblins having a clear hierarchy that appeared to have nothing to do with gender or position, and everything to do with intelligence and respect.
They might have been the most advanced race of all.
As I people-watched, learning as much as I could and filing it all away for future reference, my stomach started rumbling. Loudly. Spinning on Inky, my stalker, I growled. “I need to eat and sleep. Make it happen.”
It swelled in size, and I could again see all the sparking lights swirling inside the vortex of darkness. I was too tired and hungry to care that it was almost the same size as me now and could blast me across the room if I pissed it off. Thankfully, before I had to throw down with a smoke cloud, Gaster appeared, beaming smile in place. “Wow, you’ve certainly brightened up the place with your hard work today.”
It legitimately took every single ounce of my self-control not to punch his chirpy mouth. Had I said I liked him earlier? What the fuck had I been thinking?
“I’m going to show you to the dining hall,” he chirped, “where you can procure as much sustenance as you need.” My spirits lifted, and just like that, he was off my shit list again.
“Thank the beast.” I gasped, letting the broom clatter to the floor. It vanished in a flash, the magic of this room demonstrating in no uncertain terms how useless my sweeping had been. “I’m about five seconds from starving to death.”
My wolf raised her head, rumbles rocking my chest, and I realized that this was the first time I’d felt her in hours. She was subdued here, calm in my chest, and at times, I wondered why she acted as if we’d been shifting together for years, rather than one or two times. The weirdness of that, though, was so low on my crap-to-worry-about scale that I barely even gave it a second thought.
Nope. My wolf and I—and our dysfunctional relationship—was the normal part of my current life situation.
Sad to say.
